No Schism

But first Corinthians twelve twenty five says that there should be no schism in the body. And if I was to put a title on this little session, it would be no schism. It’s just that simple that this is what God is calling for. And then the the scripture says, but that the members should have the same care one for the other. So we see a contrast and God is just giving us a lot just in that little scripture that there’s this contrast. If there’s one, there’s usually not the other.

And if we roll back to verse four in the chapter, it’s talking about gifts and the diversity. Notice verse four. Now there are diversities of gifts. And let me just say, this by way of maybe introduction and I want you to kinda keep this in mind all week as we’re going and preaching and and trying to rally around this theme and have our souls refreshed. It’s good that we’re not all the same.

I’m just throwing that out there. Because you think, well if we’re not the same, friction happens. How many are married and because we’re so different there’s a lot of friction. And, if you’ve been married any length of time trust that you followed God’s plan, there’s a man and a woman, that’s different. And so you put them together and there’s a little friction. But God designed that for the benefit of both people and all those that are around them. And so it’s this way in the body.

If you have sameness, and I’m just trying to get you to think a little, I know it’s early, but if you have too much sameness, it’s actually weakness. So a lot of times when we just wanna be around the people that are the same as us, that have the same personality. Now as and we’ll get into the scripture, as we have the same spirit, we’re going in the same direction and God is guiding us in all of that. And the spirit is that x factor that we must have. God puts all of the members of the team together.

But sameness is not the goal because God gives us a diversity, a diversity of gifts, a diversity of just positions and administrations and such and the Bible talks about that. But notice verse four, there are diversities of gifts but the same spirit. So we’re gonna have differences and different strengths and different weaknesses. And I know that we focus on those strengths and weaknesses but understand we’re different.

So we’ve got to get along and that’s hard when we’re different. Alright? So just just keep that in mind. Verse five, and there and there are differences of administrations but the same Lord. So God puts us in the body on the team. If you have a football team, if you have... I’m from the North, you have a hockey team. I don’t know what they do down here.

Not hockey. I guarantee probably not hockey. But whatever it is, there’s different positions. There’s things that God’s put us in. You can’t have everyone doing the same thing. And so in the church it’s that way. In the family there’s that way. And it’s important that we understand follow ship and leadership. There’s there’s that in every department. I don’t care if it’s in the home, if it’s in the government, if it’s in the church.

We’ve gotta understand our role and is it a role of fellowship? Is it a role of leadership? A mother is leading her children and leading her home in that way and she’s gotta understand that God’s put her in that position of responsibility. But we’ve got to be able to submit one to the other as the Bible teaches and understand what God’s role is for us. So God’s speaking to us about a diversity of gifts and a diversity of talents but the same spirit, diversity of administrations but the same Lord. We have the same God. That’s why some crazy Italian guy from the North can come down here and we can have fellowship at least on some level. And we can because we have the same spirit and my spirit bears witness with your spirit that you’re a child of God and we have good fellowship. Verse six, and there are diversity of operations which is another whole layer.

But it is the same God which worketh all in all. But the manifestation of the spirit is given to every man to profit with all. And so the spirit is what is emphasized and so God is going again verse after verse and reminding us there’s all this difference and we all have different roles but did you notice his his kind of theme there? It’s woven throughout the scriptures. Same spirit, same spirit, same spirit. We are to have the same spirit.

We’re different but we are to have God’s spirit and that’s the key. So if we jump down to verse 21, the Bible speaking of just the members in the body, we are one body but many members. Look in verse 21, and the eye cannot say under the hand, I have no need of thee. Nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you. We are in the same body of Christ and so we’re different. That’s good. It’s good not to have two left hands or two left feet. That’s good. That’s a blessing.

Thank you, preacher. That’s a blessing but what we’ve got to understand is though that we’re different, we tend to look at something and say that’s less significant. That’s not important. We tend to do that for ourselves. Maybe we were once fulfilling a certain role and now, we’re a little older and we can’t fulfill that same role. So what we think is well I’m less significant. Nothing could be further from the truth.

If you’re breathing, God’s got a mission for you. God’s got a something that he wants you to do. But you’ve got to understand your role. Sometimes our role, a pastor that is not the pastor anymore, now he’s pastor Emeritus, he’s in a different role. He’s not leading in the same way but he is not less significant. God has given him wisdom and God has, you know, the gray head though we kinda maybe criticize that downplay that that’s not in political correctness.

We don’t like the word old. We don’t like the you know we don’t like gray hair. I’m talking in American culture. The rest of the world doesn’t operate so much that way. We go to different places in the world, if you’re tall, you’re tall, if you’re fat, you’re fat, if you’re short, you’re short. In America you can’t say that. We just pretend like it doesn’t exist but God actually elevates the the the the gray head because there’s wisdom there. And we’ve got to learn to look at things the way God looks at things. So whether we’re young and we’re in a learning role or whether we’re older and God’s given us some wisdom, we still have to find out where where is our place in the body and what is our role and what does God want from me at any given time. And sometimes because we have maybe been around the block, we can tend to take on more than maybe it’s we should be taking on. In the sense of maybe it’s not our jurisdiction or not our role. And so it’s very important in the body of Christ that we understand what our role is so that the body can work in harmony, that there is unity. And the scripture, the central theme that there be no schism. There’s no schism. That’s the goal.

But everyone is necessary. We all have need of each other. You’re needed. You’re necessary. And that is... That’s not dependent on your talent. It’s not dependent on your age, if you’re young, if you’re old, it doesn’t matter if you’re a new Christian, if you’ve been saved from a a life of wickedness late in life or you grew up in the church, you are all necessary. And so someone that was saved late in life has certain gifts that they can bring in. They’ve learned some hard lessons that they can pass on to someone else. Someone that grew up in God’s house has great benefit because he did not have that life of sin and he sees things in a different role.

But we are all necessary. Verse 22, nay, much more those members of the body which seem to be, notice what the scripture says, seem to be more feeble, so not necessarily so, but seem to be more feeble are necessary. And our tendency is when we see something that seems a little weak or stumbling, well let’s just cut it off. Let’s just say I’m done with that brother or sister in Christ because they’re they’re stumbling or they’re feeble or they’re weak.

And God is saying listen, not everything that appears to be a certain way is. So you’ve got to take that into account and we’ve got to also understand that they’re necessary. And so if someone’s older or they’re beat down, that happens to the best of us. I know we shy away from that. No one wants to admit that they’re having a bad week or that they’re spiritually weak or that they were on the mountaintop a month ago or a year ago or ten years ago but they’re not on the mountaintop now.

Elijah, one of the greatest men in the whole Old Testament, I mean we see him in the cave running from Jezebel totally discouraged. We see Moses, I mean in a fit of anger striking the rock and these are some of the greatest men in scripture. And so if they had the same, those difficulties, we will face those difficulties. So we’ve got to get out of that American mentality of just pretending and the new way it is on online where everyone pretends that everything is picturesque and perfect and never a rainy day. And we’ve got to get a little bit more real. And so God is telling us, listen, those... The members that seem to be more feeble, they’re necessary.

So young Christians, people that have been beaten down by sin, they’re necessary. Verse 23, and those members of the body which which we think to be less honorable, Upon these we bestow more abundant honor and our uncomely parts have more abundant comeliness. So God is making a physical reference. He’s painting a picture of even the way our bodies work and there’s parts that maybe are not out predominantly and there’s some things that are hid but some of those secret parts and those uncomely parts, those get more care and more, treatment, because it’s necessary.

And so oftentimes the unseen things, they get more and need to get more special treatment. And this is a biblical principle that’s being taught in the chapter, a little more care. And sometimes we think, well everyone ought to be treated the same. It’s never that way. That’s not the way a father and a mother need to govern their home and raise their kids. You say, well we need to treat everyone the same. Well you can’t when they have different needs.

I mean my sisters needed more attention from my father than I did. I had a good relationship with my father. My father was a good man. I appreciate him and his ministry but there was something that those girls needed from him that maybe I didn’t need. Does that make sense? And so we’re wise if we we go to that same spirit, that Holy Ghost and say, God direct me and guide me.

It’s not all about fairness or sameness, it’s about need. And the needs need to drive it. And so, just bear that in mind when you’re trying to sort these things out in the body of Christ and in your homes. God is saying here, for our comely parts have no need but God hath tempered the body together having given more abundant honor to that part which lacked. Sometimes we look at that lack and we just say, well that just needs to suffer.

And God’s not teaching that. He’s saying, listen, there’s some that have no need. They have no need of that. Some people need more of a pat on the back than others. Now we shouldn’t serve to receive a pat on the back or to be seen of men. God deals with that in the scripture but we need to understand as we’re in the body of Christ that some people will need some things that maybe others don’t.

And try not to be jealous of that. Try not to be upset with that. Look at it as an opportunity to meet a need. It’s that way in marriage. If there’s a struggling marriage and you have a spouse maybe that they’re jealous or something, instead of withdrawing and pulling in the opposite direction, you would be better to see that need and meet that need and you’ll draw that person closer to you. And a lot of times we tend to pull and it’s like the Chinese finger trap, you know where the harder you pull, the worse it gets.

And really what we need to do is stop all of that. Stop. Stop pulling, stop trying to make everything fair, stop trying to make everyone, like you. We tend to do that. It’s just our normal. Well, if you were more like me, everyone everything would be normal. Everything would be good because I’m I mean, just come to my level, right? Because we all think we’re normal. And I come down south, go this isn’t normal. You come up north and go this isn’t normal. I know some of you are transplants so I don’t know what you’re thinking.

But what I’m saying is we need to understand that God made us different and the diversity is okay. It’s okay to have diversity. It’s probably good to have someone come from the North and come down here and it’s probably good to have someone from the South go take and go up north. And so those things, iron sharpens iron and we see some things as different people that God gives us differently that maybe someone else won’t see.

But the unseen things and the uncomely parts sometimes they need more tender treatment, more care and that’s okay. So stop trying to make everything equal. Let’s look at verse 25 because what is the goal of all of this? That there should be no schism in the body but that the members should have the same care one for another. We’re different, we have different needs and we need to emphasize different things in different ways but there should be the same care one for another. Everyone ought to be caring for the other.

And that is the most convicting thing right there. Because so many times we’re concerned about our pressing prayer requests and our life and you don’t know what I’ve been through and all of that. And really God’s teaching us that’s not the way. A husband should be caring for his wife. A wife should be caring for her husband and and what we... The scripture says that our mind ought to be on the things of others.

Our kindness should be directed towards others and not on ourselves. But so many times we just... It’s human nature to think of ourselves. If you’ve got a pen, this will help during the week as we study a little bit and preach around this topic of schism. A good word by dictionary definition is division. Schism has a lot to do with division and specifically, maybe parenthesis would be occasioned by diversity of opinions.

Everyone’s got a different opinion and that is diversity. Now diversity in and of itself is not bad. Schism is. Schism is there’s a crack, there’s a there’s something broken. It’s not functioning well. But it’s occasion a lot of times because we’re so different and we have different opinions and we start pulling all in different directions. My father used to make this statement and he would repeat it over and over from the pulpit, you have too high of an opinion of your opinion.

And that was one of my dad’s little statements. And it’s so true. We’ve got to be heard and you need to hear what I have to say and if you’re itching to say something, maybe you need to not say something. Now you’re gonna have to forgive my directness this week. Alright? I’m gonna do my best but I’m from New York. Alright? I just lay it out there.

But but that’s the truth. A lot of times when when we feel so like pressured that I don’t know if I could say that. That’s probably when you need to say something. But you know when you’re itching and boiling to say something, you probably need to just kinda hush your mouth a little bit and take a step back and say Lord help my spirit to be right because I’m getting ready to harm someone.

And I don’t wanna have division in the body. I don’t wanna have a schism. But a lot of it’s derived around this diversity of opinions. We all will have different opinions. And again, I’ll make a connection with marriage because I think you could see it. There’s always two people in marriage that have different opinions. The goal is not to make them just like you or to think exactly the same. You see things like two mirrors on a vehicle from different angles. That’s good.

It’s good that you have different opinions, that you see things from a different perspective. So don’t worry about trying to get everyone to see everything the exact same way and make them like you. But listen, you will overwhelm each other if everyone’s giving their opinion. That’s why leadership needs to be the one that once all the information comes in from the mirrors, from the you know, all those that are that are working together, then leadership has to make the decision. And it doesn’t matter if it’s the mother in the home or the father that’s leading or the pastor or the government. God puts all that stuff together.

And another dictionary definition if you wanna write this down is breach of unity. When we’re talking about schism, it’s breach of unity. So it’s it’s like almost the opposite of unity. And the Bible, if you study the Bible word or how it’s denoted in scripture, you could also say that it’s a breach of charity. One of the most important things, if you go to first Corinthians 13, charity never faileth and God puts charity, God’s perfect love of giving without expecting anything in return, he puts it above faith.

That’s an amazing thing because without faith it’s impossible to please God. So if we have the right kind of charity in our marriage, in our church, there will be no schisms. Only by pride cometh what? Contention. And so if there’s contention, pride is there. And so we’ve got to just be honest with ourselves. And so there’s a difference between...

And let me just read my my definition when we’re talking about the breach of charity. The word in the Bible seems to denote a breach of charity rather than a difference of doctrine. A lot of times the arguments that happen in churches, they’re not doctrinal. Usually people leave churches not for doctrinal reasons. It’s all this other peripheral stuff. We have a church in New York that’s really lost a lot of people. They’re about an hour from us. And it’s a lot of it is is surface stuff. Now there may be a few issues there but a lot of it’s like, well, the pastor changed the Sunday school time or he’s grouped this group in with that group and now we’re doing this. It has nothing to do with thus saith the Lord in the Bible and the Bible is against what the preacher is doing. It’s not doctrinal.

It’s it’s all these peripheral things. So be careful of that because when we’re talking about schisms in the body, it’s not talking about a difference really of doctrine. It’s talking about division by way of opinion and a lack of charity. So what does God want? He wants care for one another. He wants us to realize that we are different, that we have different gifts. I mean we’ve read that already in the scripture.

That we have maybe a different job description though we’re on the same team. And so it’s good for us to kinda realize that and get all that together. And we need to be caring for others. So again I point you to your prayer and your care for others and what is your pervading thought and how much do you really think. You gotta be honest. How much do you really think about others? It’s hard to care for others if you don’t even think about others.

This is why it’s good to pray for other people and to prioritize what God would have you to pray for. You need to pray for your knees, nothing wrong with that. God tells us to do that. But if all of our prayer life is all about us, then there’s something drastically wrong when God says in his Bible that we ought to be putting others first and caring for others and and our emphasis ought to be what is the concern and care and and well-being of others.

First Thessalonians five twelve, I’d like you to just look there and I’m gonna just try to bring this down to maybe we’ll make one application. We’ll talk about the pastor a little bit in the next five minutes. Because when we address the body of Christ or if we’re talking about the home or whatever we’re talking about, work, God always deals with fellowship first. He tells children honor your parents and then he’s gonna turn around and tell the mother what she needs to do and she’s gonna... He directs her towards her husband.

But then God deals with the husband and tells the husband what he’s supposed to do. But that’s God’s pattern as he deals with servants and their masters, he deals with fellowship first. And he says, well you need to honor the leader and you need to have the right spirit and this will then work. You say, well everything rises and falls on leadership. Maybe not so. We’ve taken that maybe to excess. I would agree with that to a point. Leadership is very important.

But the reason that Moses didn’t go into the promised land originally, I’m talking forty years before all the trouble, was the lack of faith out of the people, not Moses. And so we can hold back leadership as fellowship. We’ve gotta be careful about that. So first Thessalonians five twelve, the Bible says, and we beseech you, brethren, to know them which labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you and to esteem them very highly in love for their works’ sake and be at peace among yourselves. So God is saying that if you have a pastor or you have leadership, even in the home this principle would apply that that you need to esteem those for their work’s sake and you need to esteem them very highly in love, the Bible says.

So according to the scripture, God wants you to be a peacemaker in the church and he wants you to esteem the pastor very highly in love for their work’s sake. And you have to be able to say, Lord, teach me and guide me and help me to know if that’s the way I view the pastor. A lot of times we say, well I’m willing, I know he’s the pastor, I’m willing to follow his lead but we don’t esteem them very highly in love for their work’s sake. That’s pretty specific.

God sets the bar pretty high. And, we’ve got to kind of say, Lord, would you help me and guide me? And so a lot of times we have a problem today, and again this is derived from our selfishness where we have an expectancy that they’re supposed to... And you fill in the blank. A child will look at their parents and say, they’re supposed to take care of me. Now that’s a wrong attitude.

That’s not what God teaches that young person. That young person is supposed to honor their parents, supposed to obey their parents and there’s a bunch of things that God directs at the fellowship. But what happens is a child says, I deserve that and God’s told him to serve me. That that is a wrong attitude. It would be wrong and we see this many times as we counsel married couples. For a wife to say, my husband needs to help me. My husband needs to love me. My husband needs to... Because that’s not her place.

Now on the surface God does tell the husband some things to do. But that’s the message for him. It’s not the message for the wife to be expectant towards the husband. Does that make sense? Let God deal with leadership. Let God... And it’s that way in the church. If the church says the pastor needs to serve me, that’s his job. That’s what we pay him to do. That’s the wrong attitude.

You’ll get nowhere with that. Let God deal with the pastor. Yes, the Bible teaches if you are you know a minister, if you are a preacher, really the higher up you go in leadership the more you’re supposed to be a servant. And that’s what God teaches but it’s not for fellowship to come to leadership and say, you need to serve. Does that make sense? So we’ve got to check our attitude. We have sometimes an expectancy and God says you look at yourself and you look at yourself. If you’re a mother, you need to look at your leadership role, you need to look at the role that God’s placed you in the home between your husband and your wife, and you need to look at what God’s told you to do. And if you’re a husband, listen, you need to look at what God’s told you to do. And if you’re a pastor, on and on and on. And so that will help there not to be schisms in the body.

And so there’s a number of things, that I think I’ll try to address maybe later during the week and as God gives me wisdom, I’ll try to put them in there as as we can. But we need to understand a little bit more about each other. And that’s my heart this week that that the Holy Ghost would maybe help you to see things from a different perspective. It’s hard for a husband to see what a wife has to deal with.

Raising kids, I mean, going through all the difficulty that a mother goes through, all the jobs that God’s given a mother. It’s hard for a man to see that because he’s out there, you know, smiting the Philistines and you know rounding up the cattle and whatever he’s doing, right? And so he looks at and says, My job is big and my job is great and all you have to do is push a button you know on the washing machine and push a button on the dryer and he doesn’t see all this. So what happens is they don’t appreciate each other. And a wife, it’s hard for her to understand the things that a husband goes through.

And that’s the way it is in a church. It’s hard for a church to see what the pastor has to deal with and it’s hard for sometimes even a pastor I see at times to know... Now I know your pastor’s a little different. You have a unique pastor. He’s been around the world. He’s done a lot of different things. But I deal with some pastors, they’ve never worked a job. They’ve only been in ministry and they don’t know what it’s like to work all day in construction and come in on Wednesday and their eyes are like this and you’re trying to listen to the pastor and you’re falling asleep and the pastor’s beating on you going, wow, you gotta wake up and all that.

So the goal this week is no schisms. And by God’s grace, if the Holy Ghost can educate us a little bit about each other, a man will never see things through a woman’s eyes. A husband can never fully appreciate what a wife does and vice versa. A wife can fully never appreciate. And you’ll never... If you don’t pastor, there’s no way you can understand what a pastor is going through.

And and so we are all unique, but God knows all of that. And he does want us to know a little bit about each other in the body of Christ. Alright? But we’re different. Let’s pray.